Original subtitles

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[dramatic music]

- [Alan] In the community that is the University of Kentucky,

fraternities and sororities mix with jocks,

mix with geeks, mix with non-Greek alike.

- The college was just so much fun.

You knew everybody.

Everybody was happy.

- So a lot of social circles crossed over.

- On a carefree summer evening in 1994,

the 21st birthday party

of senior Trent DiGiuro is destroyed

when he's murdered in full sight of his best friend.

[gun firing]

- He was bleeding.

Blood was coming out of his ears and his eyes.

I was in shock.

- Nobody had a clue where the bullet came from.

- [Alan] As investigators search Kentucky's campus

for the mystery shooter,

students don't know who to trust.

- Could be somebody on campus.

I did not feel safe anywhere.

- We were worried about who could be next.

- Sometimes best friends kill each other.

- [Alan] Leaving everyone wondering which classmate,

which teammate, which fraternity brother

could be the killer.

[dramatic music]

- In the summer of 1994, Trent was going into senior year,

was just looking forward to graduating.

He was at that time of his life.

Trent was at the University of Kentucky in the summer

because he played football as an offensive lineman,

and football is going on all year

because you train when it's not in season.

Trent lived with three guys on the team.

One of them was quarterback Antonio O'Ferral.

- Everybody that was in the house played

on the football team.

The house they lived in was a typical college house,

right on the edge of campus.

- [Holly] Trent was the life of the party,

so he always made you feel special,

and it was always a great time when he was around.

That night of Trent's 21st birthday party,

it's a Saturday, people are out of school.

- [Sean] Who came up with the idea?

It might have been Antonio just to throw a Trent party

and, you know, get a keg or two and have it at the house.

I came over later in the night.

- [Holly] Once I got to the party, I remember walking up,

and it was loud, and there was music playing.

We couldn't wait to just hug everybody

and tell Trent, happy 21st.

There were football players, and of course,

some of the guys who lived there.

People from different sororities,

non-Greek people were there,

and people from Sigma Alpha Epsilon,

the SAE fraternity.

- [Alan] Trent wasn't in a fraternity,

but he was close with the SAE members

who were there that night,

including his childhood pal Matt Blandford.

- Matt's one of Trent's good friends from high school.

He was an SAE.

I think they've known each other their whole life.

- [Holly] As it got later that evening, it got pretty quiet.

There were just five of us on the front porch of the house.

Antonio had gone to bed,

and Trent's in his big old rocking chair.

It's almost like a lounging chair.

And we were just having fun,

getting ready to wind down the night.

- Holly and I were sitting in front of Trent.

She said, "Hey, C.D., show me where the bathroom is."

And I said, "Okay."

And so I opened up the door for her,

and we went in the house.

- [Alan] Trent and the two remaining friends on the porch

are unaware that the night is about to be shattered forever.

- [Sean] Trent and I were on the porch

with this girl named Heather.

Trent was to my right, about two to three feet away.

And there was a bang.

[gun firing]

I looked over to Trent and asked him if he heard that.

Trent was slumped over.

He clearly had a wound in his head.

Saw that he'd been shot.

I took my sweatshirt off, put it on his head,

tried to stop the bleeding.

I yelled for help.

- [Chris D.] And next thing I know, Sean is running in going,

"Hey, CD, CD, something's wrong with Trent,

something's wrong with Trent."

And I saw the look on his eyes.

He was running in.

Heather was running in, screaming behind him.

So as they're running in, I'm running out.

I kind of looked down, and I see Trent.

He just kind of slumped down the chair,

kind of like this here, bleeding out both ears.

And I was like, good lord, you know, what's going on?

I stepped out onto the porch.

And I just couldn't see anything.

And it was eerily quiet.

I was looking to see, did somebody do this to Trent?

I just knew he was bleeding,

and I knew there was a possibility

that somebody had hurt him.

And I'm wondering,

is this person going to hurt the rest of us?

I mean, it's just, it all happened in seconds.

And then by that time, Antonio had come outside.

He heard the bang, and I think his girlfriend said,

"Hey, you know, that sounded like a gunshot."

- [Sean] Then I called 911.

Then I came back out to tend to Trent.

[sirens wailing]

- [Chris D.] Within a minute, a police officer showed up,

you know, and the ambulance shows up

and they're over, you know, doing CPR on Trent,

and you just knew that it wasn't good.

They say they're loading up on the gurney,

you're just thinking, oh my God, I mean,

man, I mean, what's just happened here?

[sirens wailing]

- [Alan] EMTs rush the gunshot victim

to the nearby hospital, where Trent is pronounced dead.

[sirens wailing]

A homicide detective arrives on the scene,

but authorities don't yet tell Trent's friends

that he's passed away.

- I got the call.

The dispatcher told me that there was a UK football player

that was shot and killed on campus.

He was shot in the head.

A bullet entered around his ear, and that's what ultimately

was determined that killed him, was that gunshot.

So when I pulled up,

there were a lot of people in the scene in the front yard.

These were people from the party,

so I really didn't like that,

but I was like, well, let's just move this back a little bit

and increase the perimeter of the scene.

I had college kids there, so I had witnesses.

My first reaction was there was a fight,

there was an altercation, something happened,

somebody was playing with a gun.

I saw on the front porch that there was a chair overturned,

and I could see that there was a lot of blood

around the chair.

The forensics team had a mess.

You don't know exactly where the person fell,

what the placement was.

They got to figure out what was there prior

to this happening.

The victim had been taken to the hospital.

I saw all the tape and the strips,

you know, from where they were putting in IVs

and doing all they could to try to save Trent.

They looked for shell casings.

They're looking at even minute details,

like the blood evidence

to try to give me a clue of what physical evidence is there.

But we didn't find any shell casings on the porch.

- [Alan] With forensics processing the crime scene,

Detective Evans turns his eye to Trent's friends.

- Some of the kids were grouped together.

You know, they looked very distraught, very upset.

However, the person that did it could still be here,

seeing what's going on, watching you.

[ominous music]

I asked the patrol officers there

who they think the main players are.

They told me that Sean Mann was actually on the porch,

and Sean at that point was sitting in the front yard.

So I just had a brief conversation with Sean.

What happened?

And he was crying, very upset,

and he said he heard a gunshot, and he looked over,

and Trent was slumped over.

- [Sean] I told him,

"I thought the shot had come from the side of the porch,

where I could not see him in my peripheral vision."

- [Det. Evans] Sean appears to be truthful,

everything's consistent.

I briefly talked to anyone else there.

They have no idea what happened.

I mean, that's basically the theme.

I thought, man, we need to expand this crime scene

a little bit, because nobody had any idea who did this.

But most people are killed by people that are known to them.

And sometimes, best friends kill each other,

especially when they're drinking.

- [Alan] Investigators comb for evidence

that might shed light on the shooter's identity.

- [Det. Evans] Because the fact that the victim was shot

in the ear, that appeared to be a close range shot.

I assumed this was a handgun,

because that's what we see most often in these cases.

- [Alan] But if the shot was close range,

Detective Evans must question if Trent's two friends

in closest proximity, Heather and Sean,

are telling the truth.

- [Det. Evans] They're right on the porch next to the victim.

And they're telling me over and over again,

I didn't see anything.

I don't know what happened.

I tried to develop a theory on where

the shot could have came from.

Since none of the witnesses actually saw the shooter,

it made the most sense to me that this person just stepped

from the side of the house,

took the shot, and then ran to the back.

So forensics scoured between those two houses

to try to find any physical evidence.

Forensics did not find a shell casing,

so that was disappointing.

Only physical evidence that we had that was solid

was the bullet taken from Trent's head.

So that went to the crime lab.

- [Alan] When Detective Evans asks the group

if there are any weapons on the premises,

Trent's housemate and teammate, Antonio O'Ferral,

brings him a handgun, causing investigators on scene

to wonder, are Trent's friends hiding the truth?

- [Det. Evans] Antonio told me that he and his girlfriend

went to bed about 1:30.

The gunshot, woke him up.

He was startled.

He ran out into the porch.

He could hear, you know, Sean and hear people screaming.

When he realized what had happened,

he saw Trent laying there, he went and retrieved a gun.

He said that he did that to protect himself or anyone else

at the party since there was obviously someone shot.

- [Alan] Antonio is adamant

that this is not the murder weapon,

but Detective Evans isn't so sure.

- [Det. Evans] It was a .38 revolver.

We didn't find any shell casings at the scene.

Revolvers don't leave shell casings.

Then when we looked at the revolver,

there was a bullet missing.

- [Alan] Coming up...

- Newspaper articles, thoughts, journals, notebooks,

lines drawn here and there connecting things,

almost out of a movie.

Maybe it was football players being targeted.

- [Det. Evans] The teammates were very upset,

and very distraught.

And truthfully, some of them wondered

if they were not gonna be next.

[dramatic music]

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that hit University of Kentucky senior Trent DiGiuro,

housemate and football teammate Antonio O'Ferral

hands detectives a gun on his possession

that is one round short.

-[Det. Evans] Is that gun going to match the victim?

Well, that gun became a piece of evidence.

We took it to have it checked with the bullet

that we found inside Trent.

Then I'd ask the officers to separate everyone,

take them to headquarters,

and wait for them to be interviewed.

- [Alan] Taken to the police station are three

of Trent's friends from the party, Sean Mann, Chris Davis,

and Trent's housemates, Antonio O'Ferral.

- [Det. Evans] Antonio told me

that he got a gun to protect himself

or anyone else at the party.

I ask him about the reason one bullet

wasn't in the chamber.

But he has no idea why there was a bullet missing.

He appears to be truthful.

And Antonio said that it was Chris Davis' gun.

Then I had some questions for Chris.

- [Chris D.] They're like, well, Trent's been shot he's passed.

Like what do you mean he's passed,

like he's dead and I'm like, you know, what?

[somber music]

I love Trent, I mean was one of my teammates.

I felt like who would shoot Trent?

That's kind of the first thing that went through my mind

like why?

And they're like, he's been shot and he's dead.

This is your gun,

and you're saying there's six bullets in it,

and there's only five.

I didn't have any answers for him.

- [Alan] When asked, Chris tells investigators

his account of how Antonio came to possess the weapon.

- [Chris D.] Antonio come running out there.

And he's like, Chris, what's going on?

I'm like, man, I don't know.

I said, but all I know is here's my keys.

I said, go get the gun my dad put in the car.

I was scared for everybody there,

I was trying to protect them.

- [Alan] While considering Chris

and Antonio's separate accounts,

Detective Evans zeros in on the friend seated next

to Trent only hours ago, Sean Mann.

- [Det. Evans] He was the one, when I talked to the witnesses,

that said, everybody likes Sean,

but he's going to be the one that's going to run his mouth

and start a fight.

Maybe he got in a fight with Trent.

- [Sean] We were being asked questions,

being treated like suspects.

It was very hard.

- [Det. Evans] At one point,

after I was badgering him about it a little bit,

it got pretty intense.

But then he looked up to me and said,

"Detective, you are going to find out who did this,

aren't you?"

At that point, I became convinced

that he really didn't have anything to give me.

- [Alan] The statements from Chris and Antonio also hold up.

And the missing bullet answer is finally found.

- The reason one bullet wasn't in the chamber,

sometimes people with revolvers will take the bullet out

of the first strike.

They don't have a safety.

Chris's father did that.

So if you pull the trigger inadvertently, it won't go off.

You've got to pull it twice for it to fire.

So all that made sense to me.

- [Chris D.] And then they let us go.

I'd never used that gun before.

I never touched it in my lifetime.

I knew that Antonio sure as heck didn't fire that gun.

Neither did Sean.

So who killed him and why?

- [Alan] Investigators keep asking themselves

the same question

and continue to investigate all party goers.

Then at 5:00 AM, Trent's parents are notified

their oldest son has been murdered.

- [Det. Evans] It's a hard thing

to have to tell a person's loved ones.

They were devastated.

It was heartbreaking.

- [Alan] At daybreak,

the whole state of Kentucky also learns the news,

including Trent's closest friends.

- [Holly] I found out that he did not make it, unfortunately.

And of course, we were all like crying and sobbing and

just not understanding what could have gone wrong.

Trent was always a bubbly, sweet, funny, nice guy

and just loved everybody.

Just a big, gigantic bear.

- [Sean] A lot of people called Trent a gentle giant

because he was.

You know, always smiling, always friendly.

He got along with everybody.

- [Chris D.] Trent was a very loving, caring person

that, you know, was protective of others.

Most of us were boisterous and outgoing

and had to make our presence felt

and he just wasn't that way.

- [Sean] Coming out of high school, he knew a lot of guys in

a lot of different fraternities that he was recruited.

- [Holly] I think with football, he didn't have time.

People wanted Trent in their fraternity

because they knew how loved he was.

- [Sean] That's what made it so crazy.

I couldn't think of anybody that wanted to hurt Trent.

- It was the lead story on every TV news station

across the state.

It was front page news and all the papers.

- [Alan] With all eyes on their investigation,

detectives looked for leads

within one of Trent's tightest circles,

the U.K. football team.

- [Det. Evans] The teammates were very upset

and very distraught, and truthfully,

some of them wondered if they were not gonna be next.

- [Chris G.] Maybe it was football players being targeted.

Maybe it was UK students being targeted.

- [Holly] We were worried about who could be next,

because if it could happen to Trent,

it could happen to anybody.

- [Alan] Investigators also speak to everyone

who attended the party, including Trent's good friend

from home and SAE frat member, Matt Blandford.

- [Det. Evans] Matt left the party before Trent was killed

and he had an alibi.

I asked him what the victim was into?

You know, did Trent have any enemies?

He says he, he has no idea.

Throughout the investigation from the beginning,

I talked to Mike DiGiuro, Trent's father.

You get close to the family and I got close to Mike.

It really gets heartbreaking to have to tell the family

over and over again that you still don't know.

You wanna have forward motion,

but we just didn't have any traction on anything.

- [Alan] But one week after Trent's shocking death,

Detective Evans does get word

from a trusted source in ballistics.

- [Det. Evans] Our ballistics guy, he took it upon himself

to actually call and say, "Hey, heads up,

the report's coming, and

you got a rifle on your hands."

We'd gotten this all wrong.

It changed everything.

It looked like an assassination.

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that the gun used in the murder

of Kentucky football player Trent DiGiuro was a rifle.

- [Det. Evans] It gave me a better understanding

as to why nobody we talked to saw anything.

Because if you got somebody in the cover of darkness

firing a shot with a rifle from a distance,

they're not gonna see anything.

The ballistics report told us

that it was a .243 caliber bullet,

possibly a Weatherby rifle.

It's a rifle that's designed to shoot at long range.

- [Chris G.] It's a bigger weapon.

It can be used for hunting.

It's like you'd imagine in a cowboy movie.

- [Det. Evans] When you think of a rifle,

that's someone that's thought about this.

You know, that's a planner.

It did make it pretty clear to me

this is someone that knew Trent,

maybe a student,

maybe someone he played football with.

It seemed very personal.

- The problem is,

a rifle expands the area so that it becomes so large,

it's an endless possibility

of who could have done this.

- [Alan] The Weatherby rifle is described

as "effective well past 300 yards

for small to medium game."

So the question now facing investigators is,

how do they search a crime scene that's almost 20 acres?

- We immediately started an area investigation.

Detectives go door to door.

A lot of people heard the gunshot.

- [Alan] While several neighbors confirm hearing gunfire,

detectives find one neighbor

who recounts a more specific detail.

- [Det. Evans] She said that it

it sounded like someone took a brick

and hit it up the side of her house.

Based on that, we developed this theory

that maybe that was the percussion

from where the shot was fired.

- It had trees that kind of created an overhang.

- [Det. Evans] When we looked at where she said

that she heard this brick up against her house,

and he looked at the porch.

It was direct line to where Trent was sitting.

And we discovered

that it looked like the grass had been moved.

You could literally see these two marks.

It looked like bipod marks.

Maybe there was some type of brace used for the gun.

And that was just a theory.

- [Alan] Investigators test their theory

by reenacting Trent's murder.

- [Det. Evans] We put someone about the size of Trent

sitting where we thought this chair was.

One of our snipers brings a bipod out.

We put the sniper in place.

And he confirmed that that definitely could be

where the shot came from

because he had a perfect view of the same place Trent was.

- [Alan] A short time after his murder,

Trent is laid to rest.

- The entire team went to Trent's funeral.

It was very sad.

Trent's parents were just lost.

They just lost their son.

I remember just being a very, very, very, very bad day.

- [Alan] Investigators are unable

to connect anyone to the shooting.

The investigation sputters and time marches on.

- [Det. Evans] Since we didn't have any leads,

we had decided to open up a tip line.

So we got a lot of anonymous tips,

but every lead was just a dead end.

- [Alan] Just shy of a year since his murder,

the close-knit Kentucky campus is anxious.

The killer still hasn't been caught.

And they're afraid.

- [Sean] Your mind starts racing.

You watch every turn you make around this corner.

Everybody you pass on the sidewalk

could be somebody on campus.

I did not feel safe anywhere.

- [Holly] We didn't know,

you know, who could have done something like that.

They might be sitting beside me, acting like my best friend.

- The longer it started to seem like they had no answers,

like Lord, this could be anybody.

I blinked my eyes the whole year went by.

- [Alan] In fact, almost two years pass,

and on what would be the one-year anniversary

of Trent's graduation,

the anonymous tip line bears fruit.

[phone ringing]

- [Chris G.] There was one tipster that kept calling.

He knew more than the average person would.

- [Det. Evans] Some of the stuff was close enough

to information we had that hadn't been released.

The caller talked about range,

they were familiar with campus and knew the house

that Trent lived in, knew what was across the street.

This person was very knowledgeable

about what type of weapon would have to be used.

We thought this could be our guy.

[tense music]

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[tense music]

- [Alan] Almost two years since Trent DiGiuro's assassination,

an anonymous caller's specific knowledge

of the shooting injects new urgency into the case.

[phone ringing]

- [Det. Evans] For all we knew, we had our killer calling in

to toy with us.

So we actually got with a phone company

to establish a trace on the line.

And so when he called again,

[phone ringing]

we were able to get a positive trace

to a gentleman named David Canty.

The first thing we did was a thorough background check

on David Canty.

David was in his late 30s.

- [Alan] Investigators don't find an obvious link to Trent,

but wonder if there's something they don't know

that connects Trent with Canty.

- [Det. Evans] He wasn't a UK student,

but he had lived on campus for a while,

had some relatives there.

- [Alan] With little additional data available,

investigators make a bold move.

We showed up at his trailer unannounced.

David, he didn't come to the door,

but he came to the window.

And I'm talking to him through the window,

and I noticed my partner had moved behind cover

and had his weapon out.

And I'm like, what is going on?

And he kept pointing in the window,

and then when I looked in the window,

I could see all the guns.

There were some rifles that were lined up on the wall behind him.

It almost looked like wallpaper.

It didn't look good.

- [Alan] Canty comes out peacefully

and is almost too eager to share with the detectives.

- He acknowledged that he's the one that was calling in.

He's explaining to us that he's been trying

to solve the case for us, and he's been doing a lot

of his own type of ballistic research.

[ominous music]

- [Alan] Canty leads detectives to a bone-chilling scene.

- He had been actually just shooting at paper plates,

and he's marked on it distance and wind direction

and temperature, calculating that information

as he's trying to get the truest shot.

That's a red flag.

So we go in the trailer, and lo and behold,

there are all his rifles.

[ominous music]

- [Chris G.] Something else the detectives found

that does seem odd,

newspaper articles, thoughts, journals, notebooks,

almost out of a movie with lines drawn here

and there connecting things.

- [Det. Evans] He had a sketch

where he was trying to link himself

to being part of Trent's family tree.

So he seemed to be very focused on the case,

almost obsessed with it.

He did seem a little quirky to us, you know,

and some things were odd.

And so we're trying to figure out

if that's a personality thing, or is he behaving this way

because he did something?

We're trying to discreetly look for a .243 Weatherby,

and he had some.

And ultimately, he let us take the .243 caliber rifles

that we found for ballistic testing.

And they tested that projectile that came from Trent

against those rifles.

Amazingly, it was all negative.

Those rifles were all eliminated as possibilities.

We did determine that David Canty was at work the night

that Trent was killed.

Ultimately, we decided that we had dug all we could

and in the end, we could not find a connection to Trent.

- [Chris G.] Eventually, he was discarded as a subject,

that he was just a individual who was obsessed

with this case as a true crime fan.

- [Det. Evans] So you're just left with

going back to the family,

and you have to finally make that phone call and say,

look, he didn't do it.

We're back to square one.

- [Alan] Investigators keep digging for leads

within the University of Kentucky campus and beyond,

but find nothing of substance for the next three years.

- [Det. Evans] But I still believed it was someone

that was connected to Trent.

I feel like a person would have had to be familiar

with the campus, with Trent's house.

I just didn't think it was random.

[dramatic music]

- [Alan] On the fifth anniversary of Trent's killing,

a local paper publishes a story

bringing his murder back to the forefront

of the extensive University of Kentucky community.

- [Tom] The article was mainly based around Trent's family

and how difficult it was for them not knowing

what happened to their son.

His dad, Mike DiGiuro, said,

"Somebody, somewhere, has to know."

- [Alan] Six months after the story runs,

Lexington attorney Tom Bullock receives a call

from an old friend who attended the University of Kentucky.

- [Tom] Aimee Lloyd.

I could tell she was very nervous about the call.

She said that she had information

about a crime that had been committed.

It involved this particular murder,

the shooting of Trent DiGiuro.

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- [Alan] Five and a half years

after Trent DiGiuro's unsolved murder,

Lexington attorney Tom Bullock receives a call

from Aimee Lloyd, saying she alone knows

what really happened to Trent.

- [Tom] Aimee read the news article

that was printed on the five-year anniversary

and kept thinking about

what Trent's family was going through.

Just the pain of not knowing what happened to their son.

Aimee told me that she'd been in a relationship

with a young man four years before

who had graduated from the University of Kentucky.

[dramatic music]

During their relationship,

Aimee described how they had gone to a local bar,

had some drinks together,

and the discussion came up,

"Well, what's the worst thing you've ever done?"

He had said that he had committed

the murder of Trent DiGiuro.

She was afraid that if she came forward,

that her life could be in jeopardy

because of this person.

- [Alan] Aimee seeks Tom's counsel for one reason.

How can she give Trent's shooter to police

without endangering her life?

- [Tom] So I went to a friend of mine

who's a former prosecutor,

and I asked her, "Who on the police force,

who could I trust?"

And she said, "I could trust Don Evans."

- [Alan] So Tom invites Detective Evans to his office,

not mentioning Aimee at all.

- [Det. Evans] Tom said,

"Listen, I have some information for you

that I'm gonna give you."

And he said, "You need to look into Shane Ragland."

It's the first I'd heard of Shane Ragland.

As soon as I left his office, I went back to the case file.

Shane Ragland's name was nowhere in the case file.

Then I tried to go back to some of the interviews that night

that Trent was killed, and I'm getting nothing.

Like, well, let's find out who this guy is.

[ominous music]

- [Chris G.] Shane Ragland is the son of a wealthy businessman

from Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital.

So they were well-known, well-positioned, and well-off.

- [Det. Evans] Shane was a student, you know, at UK

when this murder happened.

But I still did not have a connection to Trent DiGiuro.

- [Alan] Detective Evans asked to meet

with attorney Tom Bullock's contact,

Aimee Lloyd face to face.

- [Det. Evans] I walk into the room

and there was, there was this girl in her 20s.

She was skeptical and concerned.

Aimee told me that Shane had confessed to her

that he'd killed Trent DiGiuro.

She said at first she really didn't know

whether to believe him or not.

But she just happened to put it in her diary.

It was April 29th of 1995.

- [Tom] In 1994, Shane lived just down the street

from Trent DiGiuro.

They were neighbors.

Shane said he put his hunting rifle

in the large duffel bag,

rode his bike to fairly close

to where they were having the party.

[suspense music]

Took the shot.

[riffle cocks]

Then put the rifle back into the duffel bag,

rode his bike home.

- [Alan] Aimee's account lines up with evidence detectives

have uncovered thus far, including one key theory.

- [Tom] Shane had told her that he had used a bipod.

That's probably how Don started thinking,

"Well, wait a minute, this is, this is probably for real."

- [Alan] The big question for investigators is...

Why?

What was Shane's motive?

Aimee says the origin of Shane's tale

goes back to Trent and Shane's freshman year

at the University of Kentucky in the fall of 1991.

- [Det. Evans] Aimee told the story

that Shane was pledging SAE fraternity

with Trent's friend, Matt Blandford.

Trent and Matt were dorming together at UK.

- [Chris G.] One day during the pledge process,

Shane and Matt went to Matt and Trent's dorm room.

Trent had a sorority girl calendar.

- [Alan] And here, the crux of Shane's alleged motive

for murdering Trent comes out,

a motive so insignificant it's hard to believe.

- [Det. Evans] And one of the girls on the calendar,

Shane Ragland, pointed at and said, "I slept with her."

- Trent knew that that was the SAE president's girlfriend.

- [Det. Evans] Aimee said Trent, according to Shane Ragland,

had actually told the president that this guy's,

this pledge is claiming to have slept with your girlfriend.

The president approaches Shane,

has an altercation with him,

and then Shane is ultimately blackballed

from the fraternity.

And that's why Shane Ragland killed Trent DiGiuro.

That didn't make a whole lot of sense,

that you would have this incident happen in 1991,

and then three years later, Shane kills Trent DiGiuro.

- [Alan] Needing to corroborate Aimee's account,

Detective Evans' first step is to speak

to Shane's SAE fraternity pledge brother

and Trent's good friend, Matt Blandford.

- [Det. Evans] I was told that Matt was in the room

when Shane had claimed to have slept with this girl

on the calendar in front of Trent.

Matt Blandford was able to basically match the story up

that Aimee had told me right then and there.

- [Alan] Detective Evans learns of additional conflict

between Trent and Shane.

- [Det. Evans] After Ragland had been blackballed

from the fraternity,

Matt said Trent and Shane had bumped into each other

and that Trent had actually told Ragland, you know,

hey, I'm the one that told on you.

If you've got a beef with somebody,

you've got it with me.

We now obviously have the motive.

- [Alan] Confident that Ragland murdered

his college rival, Trent,

investigators devise an elaborate sting operation.

- [Det. Evans] I realized that I'm gonna need his confession.

So we come up with the idea that we would just

get Aimee to reach out to him, as often old lovers do.

And, you know, she was brave enough to do that for us.

- [Alan] Detectives advise Aimee

to simply reach out via email

and let Shane suggest a reunion.

Ragland takes the bait.

- [Tom] We had worked out that the best place

for Aimee to meet with Shane,

that we could keep her safe was the airport.

Back at this time period,

you didn't have to have a boarding pass

to go through the security.

- [Chris G.] You couldn't get a gun or a weapon

through a metal detector.

- [Det. Evans] So we thought,

"Well, why don't you just ask him to meet you in Lexington?

You'll do a layover.

You can meet him at the coffee shop.

You'll wear a wire.

We'll all be there with guns in the next room,

and if he tries to hurt you, we can stop him."

She agreed to it.

He bit right away.

- [Alan] Detectives work with the FBI

to try and foolproof the plan.

And on July 13, 2000,

it's go time in Lexington's Bluegrass Airport.

- Aimee's scared to death.

- [Det. Evans] And so Shane comes to the airport.

And at first, Aimee just talks about old times.

And then she just starts into it.

[d

[dra

[drama

[dramati

[dramatic

[dramatic mu

[dramatic musi

[dramatic music]

- [Alan] With authorities secretly recording,

can the undercover Aimee get Shane to confess

to murdering Trent?

- [Det. Evans] And I can't believe

he just talked about this murder

and, you know, basically confessed to it.

- [Alan] The next day, Shane Ragland is arrested

and charged for the murder of Trent DiGiuro.

Detectives interview Shane,

but don't let on they recorded his conversation with Aimee

or that she is the one who came forward.

- [Alan] Then authorities tell Shane

his confession to Aimee is on tape.

- I got it on audio tape.

- [Det. Evan] Of course,

he asked for an attorney at that point.

- Call an attorney, because you got to-

- [Det. Evans] We get a knock on the door,

and it's from another detective.

Is she okay?

- I don't know.

- [Det. Evans] He whispers to me,

we found the gun

in his mom's house.

It's a Weatherby.

So we immediately sent it off to the crime lab.

[grandiose music]

Unfortunately, the projectile had been so damaged,

they couldn't get enough of the markings to match.

But they came back, said,

"Yes, this is not a conclusive match,

but it's a circumstantial match."

So we decided to present that at trial.

- [Alan] Trent's friends are relieved to hear

an arrest has finally been made.

- It surprised me, because Shane, at first glance,

just doesn't look like a heartless, gutless murderer.

- I mean, you killed our friend for what?

Because you got blackballed out of fraternity?

It still don't make any sense.

- [Alan] In the charge of murder against Shane,

authorities have a trove of evidence.

A corroborated motive, Shane's recorded admission,

the Weatherby rifle, the box of two .43 caliber bullets,

Aimee's diary entry, and perhaps the most crucial...

- Raise your right hand, please.

Do you swear in front of testimony

- [Alan] Amy's testimony.

- He said something about,

I remember the football player who'd been killed

and told me his name, Trent.

He told me that he shot him.

He's the one that killed him.

- [Alan] At trial's end,

the jury comes back with a guilty verdict

and Shane is sentenced to 30 years.

However, three years later,

a judge throws out the testimony

of a discredited ballistics expert

and overturns the verdict.

- Obviously, DiGiuro's were crushed.

- [Alan] There's another trial,

but this time without the star witness for the prosecution.

- We had promised that we would protect her

through giving her a new identity.

So the prosecution and the defense worked out a plea deal

where Shane Ragland pleaded guilty to a lesser charge,

admitted his guilt and time served.

- [Alan] Ragland pleads guilty

to second-degree manslaughter,

and after eight years of time served,

walks away a free man.

- [Sean] What he served was a joke.

It's a joke.

- Shane's life seems to fall apart after this trial.

He was speeding around Louisville, lost control.

The car rolled several times.

He was ejected and paralyzed.

- [Chris D.] I'm like, "Finally, there's some kind of something

that happened to the person that killed Trent.

Finally."

Now you're gonna be in a wheelchair

the rest of your life.

- [Chris G.] This is a terrible tragedy

that didn't have to happen because somebody was mad.

- I go to his grave a couple times a year,

and I usually put that picture on the grave.

I do miss him, I think about him every day.

Trent would have been a good father,

he's a good son, he's a good brother.

Overall, the world's not as good without him.

[somber music]

- [Alan] The many friendship circles

of Trent's college community

were a testament to his welcomed presence

throughout the entire campus.

The great tragedy is that his deep belonging drew

the deadly ire of a jealous pledge longing to fit in.

A reminder that within all aspirational groups,

there lies the outsider

who desperately wants entry by smile

or by smite.